Articles and advice about phone scams, robocalls and spam calls
You said your Social Insurance Number out loud, and a minute later you knew it was a mistake. Here is what to do in the first 24 hours, in the order that matters: money first, credit second, the CRA account third, and why asking for a new SIN is usually not the move.
A calm voice says your account is under attack and asks you to help catch a dishonest employee. This is the "bank investigator" call, one of the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre's top 10 frauds for 2025. We walk through the script, explain why it works on careful people, and give one rule that beats every red-flag list.
The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre published its top 10 frauds for 2025, sorted twice: by number of reports and by dollars lost. We go through the figures, show why the two lists describe different problems, and say plainly what the data cannot tell you about phone fraud.
A fake CRA voicemail is only about thirty seconds long, yet almost every sentence in it has a job. We take a fictional script apart line by line, show what each sentence is meant to do to you, and rank the one line that should end the conversation first. You do not need to judge the story. You only need to find the sentence that breaks the CRA's own published rules.
Your phone shows a familiar number, or even a bank's name, and you pick up. Here is why that display is only a claim made by the caller, what STIR/SHAKEN has and hasn't changed since November 30, 2021, and the one habit that works whatever the screen says.
Practical advice on phone safety, the latest scam tactics and how to deal with robocalls and spam calls.